


pink, purple, or heliotrope

by jumpfall



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Appendicitis, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Life lessons I learned from Pixar, Quasi tag to 1x05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 15:23:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jumpfall/pseuds/jumpfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Priorities: Mike should probably see about getting the pointless and inflamed organ removed before they have in-depth conversations about their feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pink, purple, or heliotrope

**Author's Note:**

> Credit for the title goes to the Pixar short Bounding, which inspired some of Mike's hallucinations near the end.
> 
> Originally posted 2011/07/27 over on livejournal.

By the time Harvey makes it into the building, he has already been on the phone with two clients, put out three fires between them, and consumed four shots of espresso. On the whole, it's a relatively quiet morning. He catches a glimpse of Donna as he rounds the corner to his office, taking note of the tight lines of discomfort on her face and turning neatly on his heel back the way he came. It's a short detour to ground level and down to the café on the corner, but absolutely worth the time to see her small smile when he deposits a banana smoothie on her desk without a word as he picks up his mail.

"Jessica's looking for you," she says, resting her head on clasped hands.

"Here I am, in all my radiant glory." She rolls her eyes, but there's a laugh in there as well, which is as much as he can ask for on days like these.

"I'll let her know you're in, then," she replies, already dialling with one hand as she picks up the phone with the other.

Mike pops his head in the door not five minutes later, looking every bit the recalcitrant child. Harvey half-expects to turn around and find a hole approximately the size of a baseball through one of his windows. He seems to be under the impression that Harvey has something to chastise him about, so Harvey plays the part, crossing his arms to adopt the body language of disapproval. He never has been one to give up an advantage.

"Mike," he says warningly. If Harvey plays his cards right, he won't need to do much of the speaking here. Just enough to get the ball rolling, and Mike will dig his own hole.

"It was my first time dealing with a document of that sort, and it was really only a minor omission--."

There it is.

"What did you leave out?" he asks quietly, moving closer to better gauge Mike's reactions. When faced with situations like this in the past, Mike has tended towards either an apologetic or a defensive reaction, often seemingly at the flip of a coin. Harvey hasn't yet figured out what triggers each response, and not knowing intrigues him. He is used to people being predictable; it's not that he knows what Jessica will do, it's that he isn't surprised when she does it.

"You didn't--," Mike realizes at once, realization and regret dawning at once.

"I didn't. But I do now. What did you leave out?"

Harvey's phone pings just as Mike launches into his explanation, signifying a new email; he glances out towards Donna's desk, and she nods her head imperceptibly. Interesting. He pulls his email up while Mike talks, balancing that against Donna's heads-up of the situation.

_HR's missing a few forms from Mike; without that, they need Jessica's consent to reimburse his claims._

_Picking up pasta for lunch wouldn't go amiss._

_\- Donna_

From there, it isn't too hard to follow the chain of events to their natural conclusion. Mike's omission is rather minor -- as far as mistakes go, Harvey's overcome errors that are far worse. Fresh off his initial slip in housing court, though, Mike doesn't have enough experience to know its weight. The timing of his mistake is only coincident with Jessica's request to see Harvey this morning, but Mike tends towards paranoia when it comes to either his secret or his job performance.

Well, that hits two birds with one stone. Harvey resolves to track down Norma before lunch rolls around to find out where Donna had eaten that fettuccini she'd raved about for weeks afterwards.

Right on cue – not that Donna takes cues, she has had that conversation with him, such an idea doesn't do her intuition proper justice – Donna strides in, handing him a folder with a pointed look in her eye. In the distance, Harvey can see Jessica drawing closer.

"Sit," he orders Mike, tossing him the folder. Mike scrambles to keep the pages inside from falling out, catching one sheet between his right thumb and pinky finger. "Fill out the paperwork for HR, already." He considers leaving it at that, but upon further reflection, decides against it. He is self-serving, not mean; there's a line between them, and he suspects he is not the only one who would know if he crossed it. " _That_ is what Jessica wants to talk to me about."

He leaves Mike to stew in his thoughts while he informs Jessica that he's dealing with the situation. She quirks an eyebrow when she observes Mike doing the relevant paperwork on Harvey's couch, smiling knowingly.

Privately, he suspects she orchestrated the situation so they would have just that conversation. Even now, she is guiding his actions. He's not sure whether he resents it or respects it. He's not a puppy, not anymore, but she will always be his mentor on some level. He leaves her to continue enjoying the payoff of her game plan – there may come a day in the future when he can outmaneuver Jessica Pearson, but it is a long time in the running – returning to his office.

Mike is hunched over the paperwork, right arm pressed tight to his side, the side of his left hand already beginning to take on the blue tint of an ink smudge in the making. Curse of a lefty.

Harvey doesn't know what to _do_ with him. How exactly _does_ one mentor a genius moonlighting as a professional screw-up? He understands that he needs to save the kid from himself when it comes to Trevor, that much is obvious. If he hadn't stepped in when he did, there is no doubt in his mind Mike would have met with Trevor's captors solo. Had he been thinking clearly, Harvey likes to think he would have involved a third party; if not, there are further discussions they need to have.

Something about the Trevor situation still vaguely unsettles him. It isn't the danger he put himself in on Mike's behalf -- that had been his idea in the first place. Mike had hated it, had blown the bulk of the hour they had to plan trying to talk him out of it. No, the guns present at that meeting aren't responsible for his lingering unease, which had coalesced into something visceral in the pit of his stomach at some point around the moment he decided he'd had enough.

The minute Mike's phone went off in that courtroom, Harvey had known it was Trevor calling. The kid learns from his mistakes, and if his phone wasn't on silent by that point, it was intentional. The only person that Mike would risk it for is the person least likely to understand the sacrifice being made. He'd _pushed_ , instantly, furiously frustrated with Mike's inability to say no and his unwillingness to cut ties to an anchor (best friend or not) and his goddamn secrecy. Mike had pushed _back_ , and that had been enough to clue Harvey in to the urgency of the situation.

"Then _tell me_ what the hell's going on."

Mike needed someone to step in for him there – somebody to discuss the situation with, somebody to help, somebody to talk him down. Until that moment, Harvey had never really thought about it before, never cared to make the connection that he is the only person Mike Ross has available to step into that role.

He's not used to being needed not for his services, but for his guidance. He doesn't tend towards advice of a personal nature. In his experience, the people he cares enough to offer it to have their affairs well in order long before any intervention on his part.

Mike's first case on the job, Harvey told him he didn't care. It's a lie, and he knows it, but that doesn't mean he regrets it. He doesn't want to care. Caring is messy, painful, and impossible to win; none of these things fit with the lifestyle Harvey has worked so hard to create for himself.

He's just trying to figure out how to address the issue when Mike interrupts. "Ugh, do you have any Advil, by chance? I've got a huge cramp in my side."

Harvey seizes the new topic of conversation as an out, spying a chance to get Mike out of his office for a little while without having to kick him out, which would just seem petty after telling him to stay. Harvey needs a little while to consider these new developments, and it's difficult to do when Mike is sitting on his couch.

"No, sorry. Try Donna, she's pretty well stocked."

That gets Mike out of the room, leaving Harvey alone with his thoughts.

A weight has settled itself on his shoulders in the time since the confrontation outside the courthouse. It is approximately equal to that of a rookie associate. Harvey's not used to balancing such a thing, but he'd better learn fast; instinctively, he knows that this is something he can't afford to let fall.

-

Donna's lunch order gets delivered just past eleven, which earns him an approving nod from her, even more so when the delivery boy informs her the bill has already been paid. Harvey doesn't bother getting anything for himself. He's been asked to triage a lawsuit the firm was hired for out of the blue, so he'll grab something later.

He calls Mike in when he's had a chance to read through the details of the case. It's a wrongful termination suit, which will give Mike and his bleeding heart some righteous justice to seek. They're just going over the preliminaries when Mike makes a stilted motion and moves to leave.

"Mike?" Harvey says sharply. He shoots up when Mike goes down, making a dive for his falling associate. He isn't quick enough to keep him upright, so he settles for breaking Mike's fall, easing him down to the ground.

No sooner has Harvey resolved to catch him than Mike is putting him to the test. Literally. Bastard.

-

"Positive Psoas sign, tenderness over McBurney's point – we're pretty sure you have appendicitis," the paramedics tell Mike.

"You're an idiot," Harvey tells Mike. He would much prefer his associate seek medical attention before calling 911 becomes necessary.

In response, Mike leans around the paramedic taking his blood pressure, upper body hanging over the railing of the stretcher precariously in a way that concerns everyone but the relevant party. " _Not the time, Harvey._ "

"Well, I can't very well berate you after the surgery. That'd be cruel."

"Oh my God, would you _stop talking_ ," Mike moans. One of the paramedics has had the insight to pin his shoulders, but that still leaves his hands free to gesture for emphasis.

"Are you…sure you want him to ride along?" asks the younger of the two paramedics, glancing from Harvey to Mike with a look of growing apprehension.

"Yes," they reply in unison.

Mike's a little slow in the uptake – maybe something to do with an attack of acute appendicitis, who knows – so Harvey gets first shot at explaining. "He's already proven he can't make rational medical decisions for himself," Harvey says, index finger pointed at Mike warningly.

In response, Mike waves his hands in some complicated motion that is halfway between _he's going to talk his way into coming anyways_ and _I want him there_. There's room for explanation in the canyon between those sentiments, but priorities; Mike should probably see about getting the pointless and inflamed organ removed before they have in-depth conversations about their _feelings_. Come to think of it, maybe they should go after a few other things while they're in there – best check on that gallbladder, too; Harvey's going to need time to consider the right approach on this one.

The paramedics can't give him anything for pain just yet, so riding out each fresh wave occupies most of Mike's time on the ambulance ride. The rest of it is spent bickering with Harvey, because anger comes easily where calm does not. It isn't until he's arguing about medical malpractice precedent through clenched teeth that he realizes Harvey is intentionally antagonizing him. When he yells, "I was saving _your ass_ in court," what he really means is ' _thank you_.'

Harvey holds his tongue through round twelve of Mike choking the ever-loving life out of the stretcher's railing, waiting until the muscles of Mike's abdomen have slowly, carefully relaxed. Only then does he reply with, "My _ass_ hasn't needed saving in a long time," which is as close to _'you're welcome_ ' as he ever intends to get.

-

Why is it always Mike, Rachel wonders. For all his good intentions, he is one of the most trouble-prone individuals she's ever met.

As awkward as things between them have been since she turned him down – well, she is fine, he is studiously avoiding her until he gets over his pride – she still considers him a friend. She could use a few more of those – she's had more than enough romance of late. She wants a friend, not another date. Mike was supposed to be someone to grab drinks with after work. Someone to gripe to when the workload is too much and the hours are too long and the lawyers she works for expect her to pull precedent out of thin air.

Here he's gone and landed himself in the hospital, where she can't help but worry about him. She hates worrying; for all the effort expended on the task, she's just left cold and nervous and running scared at the end of the night.

She never has dealt well with vagueness, so with that in mind, Rachel does what she always does to solve problems: she researches it. Starting with the symptoms of appendicitis and moving on to treatment from there, she spends her afternoon buried in procedures, statistics, and the general feeling that she needs to have a talk with him about how this is unacceptable.

When she's done, she leaves the summarized file on Donna's desk to pass along to the relevant parties (also known as: Harvey.)

It isn't the first afternoon she's spent doing research for Mike Ross, and it had better not be the last.

-

Norma is waiting for Louis when he gets back from court, so he's been briefed by the time Jessica appears in his office. From someone that he's never seen miss a step, the frown line on her forehead is as close to shaken as he suspects she'll show. Louis keeps his comments to himself when she hands him Harvey's new case to take over. He's always wanted a chance to show Harvey up, but this doesn't qualify; it's not a victory unless they're both at their best.

He cherry-picks three of the more experienced associates, who have all either born witness to his assholery or been the victim of it. Their inclination to think less than the best of him works in his favour, as he divvies up Mike's previous work between them, leaving them with the impression that this is a punishment for Mike. This firm is a team – a team full of ball hogs, many of whom he would cheerfully trade on a moment's notice, but a team nonetheless. Mike is one of _his_ team members, and _he_ is the only thing allowed to make Mike's life hell, redundant organs take note before he slaps a lawsuit on them for failure to respect professional boundaries. Also, for pissing him off with extreme prejudice.

Donna appears just as the three are filing out; he takes a step back from her hastily, still remembering their last encounter. "That was nice of you," she points out.

"No, it wasn't," he counters. The last thing he wants is to be seen as that kind of a guy.

She continues staring him down, not deeming his denial worthy of a response. "One week. I'll fill in for Norma for one week." she grants him. "I take my coffee with two creams, no sugar, and if you call me before seven, I will schedule you in meetings until at least eight."

His jaw drops, but she points at him warningly, and he shuts it abruptly.

"Two creams, no sugar. Got it."

-

Mike counts backwards from ten arithmetically and upwards to infinity geometrically and he lets the anaesthesia address the mathematical impossibilities. The hospital and the surgery and the look on Harvey's face when he went down this morning are miles away, and Mike has all the time in the world to consider them.

With Trevor safe and sound and out of state, Mike hasn't dealt with the situation leading up to those events. Neither does he want to. There are many things he'd been expecting when he let Harvey in on what was going on, but his complete takeover of the situation had not been one of them. "They're expecting you, and that's exactly why _I'm_ going in," he'd argued. He didn't have to – he shouldn't have – but Harvey showed up.

He's not quite sure how to describe Harvey's role in his life. Friends don't care whether your work is done on time, but bosses don't care how you're managing your personal issues. He's proving to be dependable, but Mike doesn't know what to _do_ with that. How exactly _does_ one rely on a self-assured shark moonlighting as a bleeding heart? Leading an independent life at all costs for so long doesn't lend itself well to support systems.

He's an adult. He owns his actions and accepts the consequences. He's not in the market for a protector; he's made mistakes, and they've left scars, but they are his to bear. There's the thin white line underneath the ball of his right ankle (age fourteen, he and Trevor jumped ten feet into the lake below, he sliced it open on a rock and Trevor made the EMT's run the sirens), the dent in the knuckle of his left index finger (age twenty-one, he punched a hole through a wall, broke a finger, and couldn't write with his dominant hand for just under a month), and the circular red mark two inches above his knee (age nine, he dropped the sparkler, his mother didn't listen when he said he was too old for that nonsense and she kissed it better anyways, when he looks at it he can remember the feeling of her hand in his.) They are his, for better or for worse, and he is not looking for someone to make them better.

Mike isn't in the habit of regretting his actions. Experience has taught him that it does not do to live in the past. He sees enough of that in his dreams, eidetic memory be damned.

(Many years ago, Mike vowed he would never tell his Grandma he remembers the night of the crash. He hasn't had the dream in over a year now, but when he closes his eyes, he can still remember the pitch of twisting metal and the arm he threw across her chest to protect her. )

-

When Mike opens his eyes, the first words out of Harvey's mouth are, "About damn time."

He looks very much like the alpha dog in both image and demeanour, but his characteristics strike Mike as much more feline in origin. Large quantities of time spent on personal grooming. Very picky. Standoffish to outsiders, but with a soft furry underbelly.

Mike blinks. "You strike me more as a cat."

The conversation goes downhill from there.

(Okay, so maybe Mike's been accepted into the welcoming embrace of the really good drugs.)

-

They don't hit the area code of a serious conversation until Mike's being shooed into his apartment by Harvey, release papers in one hand and get well soon card from the office in the other.

"I think Donna threatened me into a speedy recovery," Mike says with a frown.

"That means she likes you," Harvey points out. "You should be proud of that."

The pain meds have made Mike malleable enough to order around, so it isn't until he's propped up in bed that he feels rebellious enough to address the elephant in the room. (It's purple, and hovering just outside the window, and it won't occur to Mike until it is too late, but it is probably a sign he should wait until his system is free of narcotics to have this conversation.)

"I don't need a parent."

"I'm not looking for a child."

"No, that's not--." It isn't what he meant to say. It's true, but not the heart of the matter. They can dance around this topic all night, but it will leave them exactly where they started. Minus one appendix. Conversations with Harvey require a degree of precision that the Vicodin is complicating. Harvey analyses diction, content, and tone. Mike needs to hit at least one of them out of the park to accomplish anything useful. "The thing with Trevor," he cuts to the chase. "You didn't need to do that."

Harvey stares him down, sporting his best ' _you're done speaking now_ ' expression. "Somebody had to."

"That doesn't always mean somebody will."

Harvey shifts slightly, and Mike is struck with the sinking feeling that he has shown too much of his hand. The limbic portion of his brain desperately wants to bury his head in the sand, but he squashes it down and holds his ground because by this point he's already said ' _I've only ever had one person who told me what I needed to hear_ ' and _'I need you to trust me'_ and one more drop in the bucket can't hurt.

"Yeah, well, get used to it," Harvey says at last.

His tone holds an air of finality, as if that is all that needs to be said on the topic. As if a similar situation were to arise tomorrow, Mike could expect him to do the exact same thing. For all their discussions of loyalty surrounding the Tom Keller incident – _maybe it's time you started showing me some loyalty_ , he can still hear himself saying; he can safely say this is not what he expected. In the face of a declaration like that, Mike is left with an ever-eloquent, "What?" in response.

"You heard me. Now shut up and go to sleep."

-

Mike loses the battle with consciousness midway through a surprisingly detailed comparison of Donna to a character from Doctor Who. He considers taping it to play back for her later, but decides against it in the end. Trust is the topic of the day, and he's not about to violate Mike's for a laugh, no matter how much he would love to see her response to Mike's half-drugged ' _Donna, human, no!_ '

It's easier than Harvey expected to keep an eye on the kid that first day out of the hospital. Mike's attempt to convince him that he is fine to be left on his own holds as much water as a sieve, considering he also seems to be under the impression that there is a jackalope quoting meaningful life lessons present in the room as well.

He researches a potential client Jessica has asked him to court on Mike's laptop while he waits for the chicken noodle soup to boil, Skypes with Donna while he adds movies to Mike's Netflix queue, and puts opposing council in the Lawson suit on speaker while he pours the rest of Mike's Red Bull down the drain in an attempt to stall his associate's next attempt at working during his recovery.

There are plenty of days when Harvey doesn't know quite what to do with Mike Ross. One minute, he's answering his phone with a client; the next, he's compiling police reports and traffic signal analyses to build their case.

Then there are days like these, when he knows exactly what needs to be done: he makes sure the kid takes his meds, restocks his abysmal kitchen with something resembling actual food, and closes a client from Mike Ross' living room.

The rest, Harvey figures he's got time to figure out.


End file.
